Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

ONE THING I'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE FRENCH (OR AT LEAST THOSE WHO INVENTED THE LANGUAGE)..

..is why they bothered to create new words for the numbers 1-16, but then got lazy and and used 10-7 (dix-sept), 10-8 (dix-huit), and 10-9 (dix-neuf) for 17, 18, and 19, respectively. Also, how comes they came up with new words for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60, but then 70 is just 60 + 10 (soixante-dix), 80 is just 4 x 20 (quatre-vingt), and 90 is (stupidest of all) 4 x 20 + 10 (quatre-vingt dix)?

I mean, if they had invested another 5 minutes during the number-naming portion of language creation, they could have saved french speakers that much time everytime they have to say the number '97' (quatre-vingt dix-sept?). Saying the number 9,593,289,192 would take about three weeks.

Are other languages dumb about this, as well, my spanish-speaking, gringo friends?

Man, the world will be way cooler when I'm in charge.

-m